Plane seat that sole survivor of Air India crash sat on appears to be very hard to book now

Following the news that the sole survivor of yesterday's deadly Air India plane crash had been seated in 11A, it looks as though the demand for said seat has since sky-rocketed.

On Thursday morning (12 June), a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner collided with a doctors' hostel just minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad in Western India and heading in the direction of Gatwick Airport, London.

Prior to the collision, a mayday call had been made from the cockpit, marking 'the last signal' from those on board.

Of the 242 individuals on board - including crew members - 241 lost their lives in the tragedy, the cause of which remains unknown.

Indian Police had previously suggested that there would likely be 'no survivors' on board the plane, after footage shared online showed the colossal plane landing in a residential area before exploding, also killing a number of people on the ground.

241 out of 242 on board the flight died yesterday (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Only one individual survived the heartbreaking collision - a British man later identified as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who'd been sitting in 11A.

Speaking to Hindustan Times of his escape in the hours that followed, he previously claimed: "It all happened so quickly.

"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me. Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."

News later emerged that another plane crash survivor - Thai singer Ruangsak Loychusakhad, 47 - had been sitting in the same seat number as Ramesh when his Thai Airways flight TG261 from Bangkok to Surat Thani crashed in 1998, killing 101 passengers.

As we say, following the revelation, a number of frequently flyers have taken to social media to express concern that the supposedly 'lucky' seat will rarely be available going forward.

One wrote on X from the perspective of a cabin crew member: "I’m sorry folks. Seat 11A is fully booked for the next 50 years."

Ramesh was sat in 11A (BBC)

"Seat 11A just became the most in-demand seat on the plane," another noted.

A third, disgruntled traveller went on to predict: "I trust our airlines to increase prices of seat 11A, 11F for the vultures they are."

"People scrambling to book Seat 11A on their next flight..." another estimated.

"Seat 11A will be the most expensive seat in upcoming flights," guessed a fifth.

Putting this theory to the test, Team Tyla attempted to book a series of flights departing from our local airport of Manchester throughout the summer and heading to a range of destinations, hoping to reserve seat 11A.

We tried EasyJet flights to several areas across Spain throughout July and across Morocco in August, none of which had any availability for seat 11A.

We also tried booking said seat on Aer Lingus trips to Ireland throughout September, and British Airways journeys to France in October, upon only a tiny handful of which the seat remained free.

Seat 11A had been booked up on a number of flights (British Airways)

Even looking ahead to October, only a few dates and destinations - including Vuelling flights to Amsterdam, Wizz Air flights to Hungary and Virgin Atlantic to New York - and had availability in seat 11A.

On one flight in particular, set for October, only three seats had been booked so far in advance, but, of course, 11A was one of them.

That isn't to say that the seat is booked on every single flight we Googled, just a hefty amount.

And while we can't say with any certainty that the pattern observed in the news this week has had an affect on seat reservation systems, it may well have served as inspiration for some last minute reshuffles.

In a number of these cases, it may also have been that 11A had been booked up before this week's devastating incident, being that its usually situated near an emergency exit.

Research carried out by The Times has suggested that, in reality, Ramesh's seat wouldn't have typically been considered the 'safest' prior to this week's crash.

The back of the plane is typically thought of as being the safest (Central Industrial Security Force / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Despite 11A being situated near to emergency exits on Boeing Dreamliners, air travel experts have long argued that the 'best' seat for protection depends on the type of crash.

In the most cases, however, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suggests that seats in the middle towards the back of the aircraft have endured the lowest fatality rates compared to those near the front to middle of the plane.

An investigation which saw a remote controlled Boeing 727 crashing in 2012 also proved the hypothesis that the front to middle sections have the smallest chance of survival.